Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and pure foolishness.
May SartonRead
Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.
Interpretation
The speaker values personal growth and inner beauty over superficial appearances.
In this quote, May Sarton reflects on the changes she has experienced over the past year, emphasizing that the totality of her being and character is far more significant than the physical signs of aging, such as wrinkles. It suggests that the depth of a personβs experiences and the wisdom gained are what truly define them, rather than their external appearance.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about self-acceptance and embracing our life experiences.
Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which discipline and order are relieved with some play and pure foolishness.
Pain can make a whole winter bright, like fever, force us to live deep and hard.
She became for me an island of light, fun, wisdom where I could run with my discoveries and torments and hopes at any time of day and find welcome.
Here life goes on, even and monotonous on the surface, full of lightning, of summits and of despair, in its depths. We have now arrived at a stage in life so rich in new perceptions that cannot be transmitted to those at another stage - one feels at the same time full of so much gentleness and so much despair - the enigma of this life grows, grows, drowns one and crushes one, then all of a sudden in a supreme moment of light one becomes aware of the sacred.
I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.... Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.
I would like to believe when I die that I have given myself away like a tree that sows seed every spring and never counts the loss, because it is not loss, it is adding to future life. It is the tree's way of being. Strongly rooted perhaps, but spilling out its treasure on the wind.
The first step is to measure whatever can easily be measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.
This is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is preparing. Why do you not make a plan to save yourself?" And Merlin said quietly, "Because I am wise. In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins.
Republics, one after another . . . have perished from a want of intelligence and virtue in the masses of the people. . . .
Genius abhors consensus because when consensus is reached, thinking stops. Stop nodding your head.
It is good to vary in order that you may frustrate the curious, especially those who envy you.
The 'tide in the affairs of men' does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late...'
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